1PETER 5:8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
PROVERBS 15:29 The LORD is far from the wicked, But He hears the prayer of the righteous.
1PETER 3
11 “AND LET HIM TURN AWAY FROM EVIL AND DO GOOD; LET HIM SEEK PEACE AND PURSUE IT.
12 “FOR THE EYES OF THE LORD ARE UPON THE RIGHTEOUS, AND HIS EARS ATTEND TO THEIR PRAYER, BUT THE FACE OF THE LORD IS AGAINST THOSE WHO DO EVIL.”
1JOHN 3:22 and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.
JAMES 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
ISAIAH 59:2 But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, And your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He does not hear.
PROVERBS 28:9 He who turns away his ear from listening to the law, Even his prayer is an abomination.
So how do we pray?
LUKE 11:1 And it came about that while He was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.”
The Disciples Prayer
This, in MATTHEW 6, is often confused and called THE Lord’s Prayer however THE Lord’s Prayer to THE FATHER is actually located in John17.
MATTHEW 6
9 “Pray, then, in this way: ‘Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name.
10 ‘Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, On earth as it is in heaven.
11 ‘Give us this day our daily bread.
12 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 ‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. ‘
LUKE 11:9 “And I say to you, ask, and it shall be given to you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you.
Jesus is giving us major revelation on the importance of being persistent with God when God is looking for this quality to answer a specific prayer.
Asking
Sometimes all you have to do is ask the Lord once or twice for something that you are really wanting. If the prayer request is in His perfect will for your life, then many of the times the Lord will answer your prayer and that will be it. You will not have to get all worked up into any kind of major prevailing or travailing with Him. Just once or twice will do it.
Seeking
Notice in the verse that if you seek, then you will "find." One of the ways God may actually want to answer one of your prayers is by leading you into finding it - and the only way you will be able to find it is by being willing to go into some kind of seeking mode to find it.
Knocking
Next time you knock on someone's door, watch how many times you naturally and instinctively want to knock. You will want to knock at least two to four times. Try knocking just one time and see how unnatural it feels.
God may want to see how much of an intense desire you really have for the prayer request by watching how much desire and intensity you show Him in your seeking and knocking after it.